Shut-In

I was up all last night blasting my newest piece over speakers at volume 11. At one point Hint came up to complain, and we scuffled for a moment before I sent the old fool tumbling back down the stairwell. Luckily for him, his obese and inflated head cushioned the fall. He didn't bother me again, although at times I thought I heard the faint tap-tapping of his pimpish cane coming up from the floor beneath, as I laughed and carried on in my solitary revels. You see, once a new song comes into being, it's as if a new child has been born. I must play it repeatedly, must cradle it and coo to it and spank it just the slightest bit to make the air enter its tiny birdlike lungs.

I slept ungodly late this morning, though, and I when I finally woke it was to a breakfast of leftover apples and muffin scrapings. It has been too cold to go to market lately, too cold even to leave bed for more than several minutes. I subsist on frozen water that I thaw over a hotplate by my bedside, and whatever bits of snack the neighbors leave at my door.

I remember reading somewhere once that Duke Ellington's mother rarely allowed him to leave his bed until the age of seven. The author claimed that this forced sloth was key in developing the composer's incredibly fruitful imagination. If my situation bears any similarity, though, I'm afraid the Duke was probably a dick. Case in point: Mia invited me to her home last night, with its enormous comforters and its windows that aren't merely welcome mats for wind. But I—having been homebound all afternoon, and with saddle sores sprouting on my backside—crankily dismissed her offer, instead opting to warm myself with homemade wine and the cramped brand of jumping jacks my pitched ceiling allows. I even snapped at Terese, the sweet little woman who lives next door, when she came by offering me fresh-pressed cider. In my defense, though, she hadn't put a single drop of bourbon into the mug. Still, when 5 am rolled around, I found myself thawing ice over the hotplate again and cursing my damnable pride. At that moment I vowed to walk outside today, to stretch these stiff old legs and breathe in air that is not ripe with a dozen too-familiar stinks. Perhaps then I won't be such a godawful curmudgeon. We shall see.